


make a home of your head

by TheSerpentsTooth



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), Fantasy High
Genre: Aelwyn Abernant - Freeform, Dissociation, F/M, Found Family, Panic Attacks, found family but it's your own family, haircuts as a metaphor for letting go, i am pioneering short hair aelwyn and im RIGHT, not sure if this should be mature or teen but we're doing mature to be safe, sex as a form of self harm, spoilers for fantasy high live, this girl has a lot of trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:34:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23749234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSerpentsTooth/pseuds/TheSerpentsTooth
Summary: Aelwyn makes it six days before she starts sneaking out again.
Comments: 27
Kudos: 146





	make a home of your head

**Author's Note:**

> hey all, there is super non-explicit sex in this, where both parties are technically consenting but one is doing it as a kind of form of self-harm to allow her to be not in her own mind for a little while. it's nothing wild or graphic but it is there, if that's something that you want to stay away from.

She makes it six days before she starts sneaking out again. 

Aelwyn Abernant has always been a golden child, weighed down by expectation and misplaced duty, her perfect posture an overcompensation in every way. Everything about her had to be perfect. Her outfit had to be pressed just so, her features had to be drawn into the right face, her hair had to be immaculate. It had always felt like a sort of armor, in a way. 

_I choose to be this_ , she would think to herself some mornings, while pulling the breastplate of her school uniform over her head.

_This is what I am_ , she would think to herself before leaving for school, her slim wand a sword at her hip, raising a self assured eyebrow at her little sister who was still scrambling. 

_I am making myself into this,_ she would think to herself some evenings after spending extra hours studying her spellwork, pulling off to the side to make sure there was nothing about her out of place before opening her own front door.

Her mother would pull apart her plaits if they weren’t done just so, carefully picking apart the strands and tutting quietly. Aelwyn would do them again, her own perfect, clumsy, ink stained fingers trying to create exactly what was desired of her. 

She would return to her mother after, turn her back to her, offer her work up for scrutiny. Often, it wasn’t enough. Arianwen would sigh and shake her head and her pointed fingers would pull and pluck and Aelwyn wouldn’t know exactly what was wrong, but she would know it was wrong. That was all that mattered, in the end. She was wrong. Arianwen never offered more than that. 

But, oh, when she got it right. There would be a soft hand on her shoulder. A barely there, “Yes, Aelwyn.” 

“That’s right, Aewlyn,” she would whisper from across the room, when her spells came out flawless, flat and factual. 

“There you are, Aelwyn,” she would say when Aelwyn walked out in a perfectly maintained Hudol uniform for the first time in a while, after breaks. 

But this, this soft, small hand on her shoulder, this clear affirmative that she had finally gotten it right. This she found herself craving. 

That was all a long time ago, Aelwyn thinks. Over a year ago, at least. Time has been hard lately, looking back always leaves her a little bit dizzy, a touch winded. 

It’s dark. There’s the slightest hint of moonlight cutting into the room she now shares with a miracle. She knows she should be only grateful. She is. 

She is. 

There’s just something about being locked up in a high tower, is all. Something about being suspended in space like that. Trapped up there. 

She made it six days. 

Well, she'd only been ready and able for about four. She had earned a small respite, she thinks. But four days sounds even worse. So, six. Nearly a week, until this itch under her skin got too strong, until this urge pulled at her like a physical thing. 

She’s sent a message on her crystal before she even really processes it, and she’s out the front door nearly as quickly. It’s a rare night, she knows, that someone isn’t awake and alert in Mordred Manor. The ghost in the cemetery probably watches her go, and she hopes he at least likes the view. 

Her hair is plaited. It’s perfect. 

She’s dressed in something tight and dark, she didn’t think about it too carefully before conjuring it for herself. It certainly hadn’t been in the closet before today. There are still bags under her eyes, her skin is pulled a little bit too tightly across her cheekbones, her ribs, her elbows. She’s a little slower than she was before, her limbs a little foreign. But her hair is perfect, and she’s had plenty of practice putting on the right face for the job. 

All she needed was to find someone just as desperate for it, and anyone who answered a middle of the night message on their crystal from an assumed war criminal exactly fit the bill. His name was…

His name was-

Oh, she knows his name. Of course she knows his name, they went to school together for years, she had to know it to find his contact on her crystal, she knew it just an hour ago. She knows his name and it’s-

It doesn’t matter. 

What matters is she’s at his house, sneaking through his open window like a shadow, chin up, eyes down, hand outstretched. He takes it. 

The next thirty minutes or so are, well. Forgettable. Which is disappointing. It’s nice, though. His hands are soft and he doesn’t ask any questions and she can slip out of her brain for a few moments, like she’s done so many times, like she’s craved all day, just allowing someone else to be in charge of what happened to her for a minute in a way that left her entirely without fault. She didn’t have to be Aelwyn, she didn't have to be someone perfect and untouchable, she didn’t even have to be some _one_ , maybe it was okay to just be some _thing_ , just something warm and available and she could do that, she really could, there’s no way to fuck that up, he can just do whatever he pleases and what’s she going to do say _no_ after being so fucked up and _desperate_ that she walked all the way here in the middle of the night in _April_ -

Anyway. She leaves after. 

It used to feel good, she thinks. After. She would sneak out, and what a thrill it always was, perfect Aelwyn doing something against the rules and doing something just because she was fucked up and wanted to. Then she would let herself slip out of her own head and float off for a little while and come back to herself a little bit sore, a little bit lost. Then she would leave, and she’d feel good for leaving because she had gotten what she wanted. She would walk back home and feel a little bit lighter for every mark she’d have to hide the next day under the perfect exterior she would reconstruct come morning. Every bruise that would ache for days and sharpen her mind when she pressed hard enough. 

While she’s wondering why it doesn’t feel as good as she remembers, wondering if maybe she’s remembering wrong like she does so often now, her hands smooth across her face, her stomach, her hair.

Her hair’s undone. 

The plait isn’t even all the way unwound, just half pulled apart like it had been pawed out with no thought or care at all, and now she is walking the streets like that.

Her hair’s undone. It’s a mess. 

She’s a mess. 

And then-

Her feet are pounding the pavement, hard and unforgiving. Her shoes aren’t meant for this, they aren’t even hers, they're just the first things she slipped on in the entryway, thin sandals that slap against the street and echo in her ears. Her shoes are ruined, somewhere, she doesn’t remember where they ended up, if someone asked where they went, why she is wearing these simple shoes unbecoming of her she would have to admit she doesn’t know and that answer has never gotten her anything but icy veins and stinging eyes because if she can’t even hold back her tears because someone is a little bit upset with her what does that make her, because it certainly doesn’t make her an _Abernant_ -

“You, ok, kiddo?” 

Aelwyn blinks. She isn’t running anymore. She’s kneeling, her head touching the tops of her thighs, her white blonde hair, streaked with mud from where it’s been mingling with the earth for some time. Her arms unlock from where they’re tightly squeezing her chest as though she’s holding herself together. The joints protest, creaking. 

She knows that voice. Not well, but she knows it, and she knows it’s safe to turn towards it. 

An elven woman stands a few feet to her right, a huge bow strapped to her back and a crease of worry stuck between her eyebrows. A griffin stands behind her, eagle eyes trained on Aelwyn. 

“Ah,” Aelwyn starts, but her voice creaks so terribly she stops immediately. It takes a few tries to clear her throat, thick as it is with something that’s trying to choke her. 

“I, ah,” she tries again, but is distracted. She had distantly thought that if Sandra Lynn was here she must have been causing a ruckus on the grounds of the manor, but now that she is blinking the moisture from her eyes she sees how wrong she was. Again. Always. 

There is wreckage in front of her. The wreckage is not familiar, but the piece of dark blue door half buried, the delicate, decorative window sills scattered over the dirt, the burned and twisted wooden beams with shards of white paint barely clinging on, those she knows. 

The sun is peeking over the horizon now, warm light spilling over the burned remains of Aelwyn’s childhood home, where she had run without even thinking, where she had collapsed half out of her mind. No one had dared touch it, not after all this time. 

Sandra Lynn is kneeling next to her now. “Let’s get you back, huh?” 

What a picture she makes. Aelwyn Abernant. Muddy and pale, sagging against a ranger in mom jeans, tight dark clothes out of place, hair snarled and snagged into knots. The griffin carries them back to Haversham Hill, the light of the morning getting brighter and brighter, and Aelwyn’s nerves wind tighter and tighter. 

Her usual impulsive move didn’t get her anywhere, she’ll just have to do something else. There’s an urge that grips her heart. Her breathing quickens. She can barely wait until Baxter’s paws touch the ground before she’s running again, her own legs hardly keeping up.

The sandals fall off of her feet and she stumbles over the uneven ground on the way to the door, she pushes it open and keeps running until she reaches one of two bathrooms in the manor, and then she’s got what she was after. 

The scissors are in her hand before Sandra Lynn gets to the door, there’s chunks of hair falling to the ground before she can get a word out. 

Aelwyn stands there, uneven, muddy, choppy, blonde hair barely falling past her ears. Sandra Lynn looks back, mouth open.

A laugh punches out of Aelwyn’s chest. She looks at herself in the mirror. Dirty. Tired. Laughing. 

She looks back to Sandra Lynn. 

“Shorter.” 

\----

It’s Jawbone who helps. Sandra Lynn ran for him as soon as Aelwyn made her demand. 

The werewolf and his chunky cardigan know their way around clippers. He regales her with tales of doing this for Tracker whenever her sides grew out too long for her liking, his voice warm and his cadence musical. He asks her opinion a lot, and waits until she answers before he moves again. 

“Is this short enough or do you want to bring it down to a 3?”

“I’m sorry?”

“This is a 5 right now, you won’t notice much of a difference if we do a 4, but if you want it shorter than this I can go back over at a 3. It’s how they measure the length for this thing, do you want a closer look?” 

“No, that’s okay.” 

“Do you want it shorter?”

There’s a pause. “Yeah. Yeah I want it shorter.” 

“Do you want it shorter because you think you should want that, or because you actually want that?”

Another pause, longer. “I want that. I can always grow it back out. It doesn’t have to be just right the first time.” 

Jawbone chuckles, moving to change the guard on the clippers to acquiesce with the request. “You’ll figure out how you like it soon enough.” 

“I’ll probably grow it back out again.” Hesitation colors her tone, but it feels important to say. Even though it also feels as though she is telling him right to his half-transformed face that his work here is for nothing. 

“It’ll grow whether you want it to or not, kiddo. Time is funny like that.” He hummed and flicked a switch. The clippers start buzzing merrily again, and he gets back to work. “But you get to control how it grows, where you want it all to fall. Cause, I think you’d look pretty sick with one shaved side, and maybe Sandra Lynn thinks you’d look best with a bob, and maybe Adaine thinks you should grow it to exactly how it was. Maybe Ragh thinks it’d be best at a 3 forever. But it’s gonna be all up to you.” 

Aelwyn closes her eyes, at that. She feels her shoulders shake before she processes what that means, but Jawbone beats her to the punch, turns off the clippers, and pulls her into a hug. His arms are strong and his hands are big and warm and he holds her tightly as she shakes and sobs and falls apart, ready to help put her back into one piece when she’s done. 

She’s afraid she might get used to that. 

She’s elated she might get to get used to that. 

Eventually they get through the haircut. She’s got a shaved head, and there’s no way around it. 

She helps sweep up the bathroom and dumps the excess hair into the trash. Her hands keep drifting distractedly to her scalp, feeling out the new texture there. She thanks Jawbone politely, almost curtly, and he smiles knowingly back at her. 

The sun is fully out now, the air is warming. Aelwyn climbs the stairs of the tower on sure legs, bare feet relishing in the feel of rough, cold wood. 

She’s back in her room now, everything exactly how she remembers it. Every book just as it was, the rug slightly askew from where she had tripped yesterday and accidentally pulled it with her. 

Her miracle was still asleep, the lazy thing. She had taken to it, since they’d returned, choosing to lose full consciousness instead of trancing half-alert. Aelwyn doesn’t understand her sometimes. Maybe someday. 

She changes into something softer, something tan and knitted that was never meant for her but that she finds she likes anyway. She pulls socks with little pink hearts on them over her feet and slouchy pants over her legs. 

Aelwyn takes a deep breath, flexes her fingers, feels her body safe and whole and light and free, and jumps as hard as she can onto her sister's bed. 

Adaine shrieks. She’s upright in less than a second, eyes huge and slightly unfocused without her glasses. “Aelwyn?” 

Aelwyn smiles. It’s easier than it was yesterday. “Adaine.” 

Adaine casts about for her glasses, grasping in entirely the wrong place. Aelwyn takes pity on her and hands them over, watching confusion spread across her little sister’s face as she takes her in. 

“What did-”

“You’re sleeping in,” Aelwyn interrupts. She doesn’t want to talk about it. Not today. “Not very becoming of a wizard.”

Aelwyn stands and stretches again, heading for the door. 

Adaine is grumbling as she gets out of bed, Aelwyn just catches “-maybe you’re not very becoming of a-” 

Aelwyn spins on her heel, sticks out her tongue. Adaine barks a laugh, saying, “Oh, mature.” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of prophesied oracle or something? Shouldn’t you have seen all this coming?” Aelwyn asks, all exaggerated movements and over enunciated words. 

“Aren’t you,” Adaine says, jumping next to Aelwyn and pushing her out of the way of the door. “Going to be the last one to breakfast?” 

She takes off running, leaving Aelwyn standing in the room, laughing and breathless. 

It had taken her six days to try something stupid. 

It would take a lot longer for everything to settle, to feel right again. Maybe for the first time. 

But chasing her sister down the stairs, yelling nonsense about dibs and early birds, Aelwyn is starting to think there’s really something to this. 

**Author's Note:**

> i have pioneered short hair aelwyn and i'm RIGHT
> 
> as far as i am concerned this is all canon, i love this stupid elf so much
> 
> follow me on tumbler @serpents-tooth and come yell about aelwyn with me


End file.
